Earlier in 2020 a collaboration project between the City of Vaasa, Vaasan Sähkö, Wärtsilä and TietoEVRY was announced. The collaboration is aiming to build one of the world’s first solutions to help a city go carbon neutral. In the experiment, the team researched measures that could slow down climate change, with the City of Vaasa a pilot environment. The result of the experiment was a proof-of-concept of a data platform that provides a comprehensive picture of the city’s emissions and models the results of different kinds of climate actions. This allows the parties to define the most efficient and cost-effective ways to reduce emissions and also to provide transparent tools in aid of decision-making.
The concept is a great example of how the Smart Partner Campus, that acts as part of the Smart Technology Hub, will work. Parties from different sectors and backgrounds come together in order to innovate. The carbon neutral project will now continue accelerating amongst other partners. But although Wärtsilä will no longer take an active part in this particular project, we will remain available with our Energy Transition Model capabilities to support the decarbonisation of cities and regions.
The project has gained national attention and was highlighted in for example a Suomi Areena discussion forum focusing on how technology companies together can fight climate change and by that, help reach the goal of a carbon neutral Finland and Europe. The panel discussion was visited by Krista Mikkonen, Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Jyrki Häkämies, Direcor General for the Confederation of Finnish Industries, Antti Vasara, Managing Director at VTT, Satu Kiiskinen, Managing Partner for TietoEVRY in Finland and Finnish snowboarder Enni Rukajärvi. Watch the whole discussion in Finnish here.
